Letter #86: One Spring Night

Good morning, Erin.

If you thought I wouldn’t immediately jump into doing a Han Ji-min trilogy after reading the Behind Your Touch letter—in spite of promising to watch the BTS shows, complete a Park Min-young trilogy, and spend Phase III specifically working through a list of “old” K-dramas—you thought wrong, dear seonbae! 

Just like how if you thought I wouldn’t stay up until 3 AM on a work night deciding which member of I.O.I was my favorite, you would also have thought wrong! (I’ll give you three guesses—and, brace yourself, it isn’t Mina or Sejeong (who are second and fourth on my list, respectively). See #17 for the answer!)

But, yes, we’re doing another Han Ji-min show, because I have to see if it’s her or if it was just Ye-bun (from Behind Your Touch) that I’d fallen for. It’s an important distinction. This is for science, Erin.

Which brings us to One Spring Night, a show that is—appropriately enough, given the introduction to my previous letter—about the importance of timing in romance. (If you don’t already know.)

I’ll do my best to avoid overtly spoiling plot stuff, but I’m also going to suggest maybe giving this one a pass, if you haven’t seen it yet, so…potentially some spoilers of some kind ahead. Maybe. Broadly. 

Anyway—ready for some more Han Ji-min? HOW COULD YOU NOT BE, RIGHT???

1. For reasons that will become clear in a moment, we’ll start with the list of everyone I recognized:

• Ye-bun from Behind Your Touch as Jeong-in (our female lead)

• Eun-tak’s baseball friend from Goblin as Ji-ho (our male lead)

• Ok-hui from Behind Your Touch as Jeong-in’s little sister, Jae-in (mini-reunion! Woo!)

• the hot English teacher from All of Us are Dead as Jeong-in’s best friend

• the chief psychiatrist from It’s Okay to Not be Okay as the boyfriend’s dad

• the jailed killer from The Glory as Jeong-in’s brother-in-law

1A. …it really felt like there were more, but my notes say otherwise. 

2. This is the third time I’ve seen the actress who plays Jae-in (Ok-hui from Behind Your Touch; the restaurant owner-friend from Fix You), and she is absolutely in position to go 3-for-3 with #bestgirl wins—but…will she? And, if so, will it once again be a tie with Han Ji-min’s character? Or is there someone else ready to snipe the trophy at the last second? The answer may surprise you. Or maybe it won’t. Either way—stay tuned! 

3. To answer the “for science!” question: yes, it’s Han Ji-min rather than just the character she played in Behind Your Touch. (And, as I write this, I’ve started Familiar Wife, as well, where—even up against Kang Han-na (Big Sister from Start-Up)—I still find myself getting that same jolt of excitement every time she steps into frame.) I know this was a pressing issue for you, so I thought we’d get to it quickly. Purely for your benefit. Obviously.

4. I really don’t know what it is about the actor who plays our male lead, but I want to punch him in the face. 

4A. No, seriously, I do. And I really couldn’t tell you why. I mean, I can contrive something about the way he smiles that I find…irritatingly smug, perhaps, but he is otherwise fairly unobjectionable (as an actor) that I can’t really justify the, um, pugilistic imperative he ignites in me.

4B. Like, okay, I know I was totally against him in Goblin for plot reasons, but my love of Eun-tak (and, since the wanting to punch him did carry over to Tune in For Love, my love of Kim Go-eun in general) can’t possibly account for this level of malign frowning he tends to elicit from me. Because I like to joke about Nam Do-san being the bane of my K-drama existence, but it’s just jokes, born more of some manner of…I’ll call it jealousy (or perhaps jealousy by proxy, since I was really invested in the Start-Up romance) than anything approaching distaste. But this guy? I just…I dunno. Maybe he stole my girlfriend in a past life. That’s about as rational an answer as I can give. 

4C. That said, he does pretty okay in this. Which means the dude from Business Proposal remains the sole occupant of my “actors who need to be dropped into the sea” list.

4D. Except his name is “Ji-ho,” which is the name of Jung So-min’s character in First Life, which is where I fell in love with her, so that bothered me. Tryin’ to Trojan Horse good vibes. And I was not having it, let me tell you.

4E. Wait—also the 100 Day Prince. He’s also on my “actors who need to be dropped into the sea” list. How could I forget? So, those two, but not the guy playing Ji-ho, here. He’s fine.

4F. Except I want to punch him. 

4G. Also, he (the character) plays on a recreational basketball team, and his jersey number is 23, which is my favorite number. It’s like the show was mocking me. 

5. One of the show’s strengths—at first—is its ability to essentially retread the exact same ground multiple times and have it still be entertaining. Part of that is down to the retrod ground being written well enough that it seems natural for the essence of these scenes to repeat, because the characters would go through the same situation over and over again; and part of it is because it’s exactly the kind of thing I like to see in my shows (a lot of wanting to be together but not really taking the final steps to be able to do so), making my previous statement so undeniably biased that it’s probably not to be taken seriously. but, even so, I stand by my assessment: very strong first few episodes. 

6. The show’s biggest weakness, though, is the GODDAMN MOTHERF***ING SOUNDTRACK, which is A) not very good, consisting of the same three songs played over and over and over again in every episodes, and B) consisting of the same three songs played over and over and over again AT THE MOST TONALLY INAPPROPRIATE TIMES, cutting into or underplaying dramatic moments with lilting Rod Stewart-esque acoustic rock that clash so much with what’s on screen that they are all but an existential threat to the story. Literally any moment where silence or a light orchestral piece would have elevated the beauty or emotions of what we’re watching was undercut by the exact same warbling and strumming that was present during filler scenes of people walking from their cars to a store—regardless of whether the moment was joyful, exciting, contentious, or dripping with pathos. I don’t know who came up with this, and I don’t know how anyone approved it, but jiminy f*** was it annoying. Like, 20% of my notes are complaints about the music. Ugh. Awful. 

7. Speaking of awful: those high heels they have my beloved Han Ji-min wearing for most of the first part of this series are an affront to human decency. And, I’m sure, very fashionable. 

8. Jae-in (the female lead’s little sister) enters the series having returned from studying in France because she may have been a little too aggressive in wooing a Frenchman she’d taken a liking to. This is particularly of note because this is the actress who played Ok-hui in Behind Your Touch, where (I’m sure you remember) the gag was that she longed to fall in love with a Frenchman, she’d lapse into French when she was annoyed, she would play the accordion—all very funny stuff. Now, I can’t remember if anything like this came up in her role in Fix You, but I thought it was odd that at least two of the three things I’ve seen her in have been roles where she has such a strong affection for France. So I did a little research and, surprise surprise, the actress in fact studied in France and speaks French (fluently?). So, obviously the productions wanted to take advantage of that skillset—as they should. My question is…while the whole French thing is sort of a throwaway detail in One Spring Night and could have been her studying in America or Spain or Japan, was the gag in Behind Your Touch always going to be that Ok-hui was into French culture, or did they write that specifically because of the actress? It’s such a fundamental part of her character, so I’d love to know if it was planned or sort of ad hoc. 

9. Something this show does very, very right: absolutely nails the chance-encounter-love-at-first-sight moment. It’s perfect: mundane, believable, subtle yet obvious. 

10. Something else this show does very, very right: it’s not afraid to admit that sometimes love—even true love—is messy. Which sounds like something a lot of “serious” shows will do, but this one actually isn’t afraid to let its protagonists come off like total dicks in pursuit of this theme—and it will actually call them out on their bad behavior rather than sweep it aside or excuse it away. 

10A. …though we are going to talk about exactly that later on, believe me. 

11. Holy crap! This is totally unrelated to the show, but the “walking around Seoul” video that’s playing as I write this is in a park—and I recognize the little gazebo that’s on screen right now because it was a meeting spot for one of the secret dates on Pink Lie! It’s where Finger Guns was waiting for (unbeknownst to him) The Gal! Look at me, knowing things. 

12. Something this show does kind of half-right: anything involving Ji-ho being a single dad—particularly in terms of Jeong-in entering the son’s life. The little boy is as immediately smitten with her as his dad is, and she is as smitten with the little boy as she is with his dad…but she really oversteps her bounds on more than one occasion, and I don’t think the show holds her to task for it AT ALL. The show gets it right with other areas (like how protective of his son Ji-ho is, or how people react to him being a single-dad), but this one needed more work. Which doesn’t surprise me, in a sense…but, again, we’re going to get to that. 

13. This is kind of frivolous, but thank God the hot young cashier from the pharmacy isn’t really a character. Because, somewhere around Episode 13, Ji-ho’s boss (who I have in my notes as “Pharmacy Noona”) unexpectedly enters the #bestgirl fray, and my decision would have been that much tougher if I’d had to contend with her as well.

13A. Of course, I’ve also neglected to mention that, prior to this sudden entry, it had already been a three-way race between Jeong-in, Jae-in, and (surprise!) Jeong-in’s best friend…who you will recall is the hot English teacher from All of Us are Dead. And who is on this list for being a fun character.

13B. “Fun. By which you mean ho—”

THERE’S NO TIME, ERIN!

14. There are three absolute dickbag characters on this show, but none is an absolute dickbag the whole time. Which is great, particularly when the show explains where the being-a-dickbag comes from—regardless of whether we find it excusable—and when changing circumstances lead the characters to adjust their stances. Unfortunately, I feel like we get one good, one iffy, and one totally f***ed execution of this. 

15. …actually, wait, there’s a fourth, much worse bag of dicks, but I always forgot about him—because I spent most of the show forgetting he (and the characters specific to the storyline he was a part of) was even on the darn show. I genuinely don’t know what the point of that section of the show was, and I can only contrive that it was some kind of “the patriarchy!” message-y segment of the show. That whole part of the show is well-acted, I think, but I don’t know that it needed to be there, it was so detached from the thrust of the overall story. And, as I have intimated, it wasn’t even around often enough to remember the characters in it were characters. (“Thematically relevant but substantively empty” is how I describe it in my notes.)

15A. In fairness, there is one element of that sub-story that I guess is thematically relevant to the main story…but…I dunno. I just feel like it should have been done differently. (Which is going to tie in to the thing I keep saying I’m going to get to. Promise.)

16. The actress playing Jae-in does a fantastic job of just being in scenes where her role is mostly just to physically be there. She’s always sitting or standing in the background absolutely absorbed in looking at her phone. It’s great. And she always moves through her other scenes like she’s got something she wants to do, like her character exists outside of what she’s in the scene to do, which is not something we often get from actors. It’s so great watching this actress work.

17. Okay, as promised—it’s time to reveal my I.O.I fave! Did you make your guesses, Erin? Do you feel confident? Well, let’s see if you guessed…Yoojung! Surprised? Obvious? Not a guess but, in hindsight, makes perfect sense? Did you spot me in my new red sweater and simply deduce that I had recently joined the Weki Meki fandom, thus limiting your choices and, after carefully analyzing the common facial features of all my favorite K-drama actresses and cross-referencing them against the remaining girls, arrive at the correct conclusion? I bet it was that last one. Bah, I can never fool you. 

17A. Oh, and Doyeon (who happens to be the other transplant from I.O.I to Weki Meki) is my third favorite. Just in point of fact. I mean, I told you my first, second, and fourth favorites. Leaving out third would seem cruel. (I don’t know if this should surprise you or not, given that she was my #bestgirl from My Roommate is a Gumiho!)

17B. Also, Weki Meki’s “Picky Picky” is an absolute banger. I am so in on this group.

17C. …and, look at that, they’re probably being disbanded. Of course they are. I can’t have nice things. 

17D. “Daryl...weren’t Yoojung, Mina, and Doyeon all 16 years old when I.O.I debu—”

THERE’S NO TIME, ERIN! 

18. In a show where almost everyone has a rough time, Ji-ho’s buddy might be the most abused character of the series: he just wants everything to be cool, and no one will let anything be cool. Because he’s not involved in any of the drama, but he knows all sides of it, so he has to catch flak for it in other people’s stead. Poor guy.

19. Quiznos sponsorship. LAAAAAME.

20. I noticed a little statuette of the masked…spirit…thing from the anime movie Spirited Away. I kind of hate Miyazaki films, so I wouldn't say this is a plus. It’s not a minus, either—I just wanted to point out that I noticed it. And reiterate that I kind of hate Miyazaki films. 

21. Speaking of noticing things: don’t think I wasn’t keenly aware that the dinosaur sticker on the back of Jeong-in’s phone WASN’T THERE in Episode 8 but is then very obviously back in Episode 9 when the story has explicit need to reference it. World’s…greatest…detective. 

22. We get a variant of the “why can’t I just like him?” sentiment you know I’m a big, big fan of. It’s…an admittedly  more burdensome version of the idea, here, but I still approve of the gist. As Jenny Lewis once opined, “You are what you love—and not what loves you back.”

22A. Of course, Jenny Lewis also once said, “I’ve always tried to get around writing love songs, I guess because I've always had a hard time saying, ‘I love you.’” So…context. 

23. I swear we never hear a single cell phone ring in the entire run of the show, despite people picking up their phones to answer calls every 10 minutes. Sure, they could all be on vibrate, and every character whose phone it isn’t might be standing close enough to it to hear the vibration go off, but…come on. I’m still in the 95th percentile for hearing. I’m practically Daredevil, over here. 

24. Speaking of phones: Jeong-in’s secondary work-friend practically leaps over tables to grab Jeong-in’s phone when it goes off and she’s not at her desk. Goes running over to wherever she is. Which is very silly—but also very much appreciated in the later episodes, when things start to get needlessly tense and frustrating. (That is, both within and without the world of the story.)

25. Whatever else I might have to say about the central story, I want to point out that it is tough to give a crap about literally any of the other stuff going on. 

25A. …except maybe the tertiary characters’ romance subplot, but it’s around infrequently enough that I think I can claim I don’t care about anything outside the central story and still argue that I’m correct. Which is the most important thing.

26. The last three(? four?) episodes are almost entirely extraneous. They aren’t totally disconnected from the plot, but they are certainly needless add-ons to the story. Things wrap up (or reach a wrap-up point, at least) pretty neatly around Episode 13—but there are 16 episodes, so…gotta amp up those petty arguments to fill time. 

27. The only thing this show loves as much as its motherf***ing soundtrack is shots of people walking up to or down from Ji-ho’s apartment. The stairwell is enclosed in glass, so you betcha they get a shot of everyone who goes up or down those stairs from outside on the street. All three flights. Every time. 

28. As I may or may not have told you, I only got a cell phone for the first time towards the end of 2020. I mention this because, after having watched this show, hoooooooooooly cow am I thankful I never had the ability to send text messages during any of my breakups. I mean, yes, I’ve written an embarrassing, self-indulgent email or two in my hours of heartbreak, but…goodness, if I’d had the ability to real-time stream-of-consciousness at my ex-girlfriend? I’d probably cringe myself to death thinking of it. Oof. Slightly less upset I’ve been single these last couple of years, now. 

28A. Oh, God…oh goodness me, I just remembered a letter I wrote to my first “girlfriend” when I was in 7th grade. Ugh, that’s a memory I didn’t need to unbury. 

29. One of my favorite details is the sleeping arrangement at Jeong-in’s apartment when Jae-in comes to stay with her: Jae-in takes the bed, and Jeong-in sleeps on the floor. The show eventually explains why they don’t share the bed, but it never says anything about why she’s the one sleeping on the floor. She just does, and it immediately tells you a lot about who she is, at least in relation to her sister. 

30. I think our leads are adorable together, and yet I’m not sure the actors actually have much chemistry. I could not manage to figure out why I felt that way, and I spent about 30% of the show mulling it over. 

31. I know couples break up all the time without really breaking up—that is, I know two people can claim that they’re through with each other but not really mean it. And I know that actually breaking up is often not just a one-conversation affair. But there’s a breakup-related plotline in this series that I will need someone to explain to me, in terms of how it plays out. I can’t scale how much of it is realism, how much of it is trying to stretch a story to fill time, and how much of it is deliberately designed for us to say, “Shouldn’t this be over already?”

32. There’s a scene where Jeong-in’s boyfriend spills coffee on himself, and it is hilarious. It’s like a full minute long and an example of some genius directing choices. 

33. Okay, so, one of the things I said I thought the show did really well was allow its characters to be flawed and then also make plain that the characters aren’t being their best. However, there is an extreme imbalance in how (and when) this is done. In a sense, this show is similar to Because This is My First Life in how it tries to address the patriarchal defaults of Korean society, though it does so far less directly—which, as someone who is typically wary of “message” stories, I certainly appreciate. Ultimately, it is more directly a story about social expectation versus individual happiness, and it’s more a matter of Korea having patriarchal social defaults being a matter of fact rather than a specific point of contention. (Though, where it does lean into this, it is done more deftly than anything in First Life.)

33A. So, why does any of that matter to the imbalance I was talking about? Well, the specific issue is that the distribution of flaws is very, very heavily weighted against the men in the story. Which is not strictly a problem in and of itself, given the protagonists are women and given that they are at least broadly “in conflict with” the men in their lives (husbands, fathers, friends, boyfriends). As such, the men are in many ways obstacles or in some manner antagonists to the women, which means it’s expected that they would be cast in a more negative light and the women in a more positive light. But where this becomes an issue—in my opinion, at least—is in how the characters are written to be fairly realistic people reacting in realistic ways…until the story needs them to conveniently stop being seen objectively. And that’s when things get lopsided: the men’s flaws are signs of personal failings, while the women’s flaws are often framed to be positive expressions stifled (and thus in some fashion twisted) by social pressures. 

33B. For example, Jeong-in and her father share many of the same flaws, both being short-sighted, quick to anger, and frequently presumptuous (albeit in different ways) with people they love. And both are dealing with situations of societal expectation. But both the story and the characters openly judge the father, while the show and characters often—but not always—take pains to justify, support, or otherwise sympathize with Jeong-in. Same goes for the other men and women along the way. 

33C. The exceptions, of course, are Ji-ho’s parents, though I’d argue that A) his mom’s flaws are pretty minor and very easy to explain away, and B) his father isn’t enough of a character to have flaws. 

33C. Now, to clarify, I’m not advocating that there needs to be an equal number of men and women on either side of the judge/support line. Rather, I’m trying to say that the storytelling suffers because the writer decides to veer from letting the audience come to its own decisions to telling the audience how it’s supposed to feel. Of course, I’m sure there are shows I really enjoy that do this kind of thing and get away with it. But One Spring Night is too frequently hands-off with its presentation not to notice when it starts manipulating the script, and it’s even more obvious when the split is so clean. And it absolutely hurt my opinion of the show. 

34. That said…there are plenty of Hyundai logos, so that balances out a lot.

35. But relatedly: Jeong-in’s best friend (the hot English Teacher from All of Us are Dead) absolutely takes Jeong-in to task for being a stubborn, selfish jerkface for half the show, and—with many apologies to Jae-in and Pharmacy Noona—totally became #BestGirl. 

Which…gosh, that was a lot to say. Without maybe saying anything. (So, y’know, same old same old.) The big takeaways being I’m totally in love with Han Ji-min, wasn’t totally in love with One Spring Night, and really need to learn the name of the actress who played Jae-in because she’s frikkin’ great in everything I’ve seen her in. Oh, also that I want to punch the actor playing the male lead. Inexplicably(?). 

Anyway…

I owe you an apology, Erin: I am very much behind on these letters to you. I do try to get at least one out every couple of weeks, but…this one took me weeks to complete (partially work stuff, partially my own fault). And I’ve got four more stacks of notes sitting in my folder, glaring angrily at me to get my act together—which, given that I literally just stayed up until 3:30 AM to try to learn the zodiac signs for all the members of Weki Meki, is unlikely to happen. But certainly I can work harder to use my lack of sleep for the forces of good. (With “good,” here, of course being you.)

So, yeah, more soon. Very soon. Hopefully very soon. Soon-ish. Very hopefully soon-ish. 

Probably.

—Daryl

P.S. - All my ranting about Korean dating shows at the office has actually gotten a couple of people interested in watching along when Single’s Inferno 3 comes out. Just FYI.